The Magic House St. Louis ~ Family #Travel Review

My family traveled to St. Louis over Labor Day weekend.  Although my husband and I have been there before, this is the first time we have taken the kids. Number one the "To Do" list was a visit to The Magic House, St. Louis Children's Museum.  We had read about The Magic Tree House exhibit that was there and wanted to visit before it ended because my son is a big fan of the Magic Tree House books.  His grandma started giving him the books a couple of years ago and we've been reading them together ever since.  We're on book #41 and I'm not sure what we'll do with ourselves when we have to wait for a new book to come out.

The Magic Tree House exhibit was our first stop since it was right on the main level and the primary reason for the visit.  The exhibit featured three of the books in the series.  

The kids enjoyed reenacting parts of the story.

My son had a great time in the mystery room.  He loved crawling through the ductwork that led to a slide.  He did that several times until I had to convince him there was still much to see.  This is the room that us parents could have stayed in longer though checking out all the evidence and clues.

Little Miss had to find her own tunnel to crawl through.

We finally made it to the other side of the house where a lot more fun awaited us.

T. had to check out the ElectroSatic Generator.  This crazy thing was actually a little nostalgic for me because this is the part of The Magic House that I remember from when I visited as a child.

The 3-story slide just might have been their favorite thing to do there.  We were lucky to find it early enough in the morning that they went down 6 or 7 times in a row with little or no wait.  By the time we came back to it closer to noon there was a long line of kiddos waiting.

We finally made it to the Children's Village!  Here's T. working on his mechanic skills. We spent the most time in this area, however I don't have many pictures to share. There were a lot of kids there and it would be hard to crop other people's children out of the shots.  I'm sure The Magic House is always busy, but since it was a holiday weekend plus it was a rainy day it was probably even crazier than normal.  The kids adored everything there and could have played there forever.  They loved serving ice cream from the ice cream cart, shopping at the grocery store, taking care of pets at the vet office, and running the pizza shop.  My daughter loved playing librarian and banker which means she is a lot like me.  I appreciated all the attention to detail in the children's village, but especially loved the stream running through the village that spilled out into the pond.  Kids could fish in the pond then return their fish upstream and watch it float down.  I've never seen anything like it at any of the children's museums we've been to before.

After spending over 3 hours there we thought we would try to work our way to an exit, but we just kept discovering more things to do.  On the lower level of one building we found the Lewis and Clark Adventure.  My only regret of the day was letting my hubby go with my son (Little Miss was too young to do it).  I thought I would go back through with my son, but you are only allowed to go through it once, so I never did go do it by myself.

On the lower level of the red building was even more to do.  T. had fun in the oval office and loved speaking in the microphone in the office and the courtroom. 

Both kids loved the Kids' Construction Zone and would have played there much longer even we would have let them, but mom & dad were getting worn out!

We let T. do some more climbing on the the three-story beanstalk before we pulled the plug on the fun.

We ended up staying at the Magic House for over 4 hours and we could have easily made a day out of it if we were staying in St. Louis longer. I know there were many things there we didn't even get to see or do.  After visiting I definitely understand why it's rated as the #5 traveler recommended attraction in St. Louis on TripAdvisor.  In a city with so much to see and do it is a "must do" for families with kids and I would recommend it to anyone. 

Disclosure:  This is a sponsored post.  All opinions are 100% mine.